In the course “Introduction to Digital Literary Studies”, we will be tackling some of the basic forms through which the field of literary studies is being transformed in the age of Digital Humanities (DH). Offered as an introductory course for Masters students, the course is divided in three parts: as an introduction to the methodologies that are available in DH for literature; as ways to show the exemplary forms of analysing and exploring literature and literary genres (drama, poetry, novel, and memoir); and finally, as a more experiment-based learning space where students will have their own projects at the end of the course. It is expected that students who will attend this course will be able to critically analyse a literary text through one of the methods that will be discussed and used in the course at the end of the semester. While previous coding experience is not required, students will be expected to have access to a computer in order to follow the course and its mandatory requirements.
During the first class of this course (on 15.10.2025), there will be time set aside for questions and queries. If you cannot make it to the first class, please make sure to write priyam.goswami.choudhury@uni-potsdam.de and/or henny.sluyter-gaethje@uni-potsdam.de with your queries.
Students studying MA Germanistik are strongly encouraged to also take part in the seminar ”Python, Pandas, Anaconda. KI-unterstütztes Programmieren für Literaturwissenschaftler:innen”, which will be aligned with the programme of this seminar. The participation in both courses will enable the students to complete the entire module in this winter semester.
In order to get full credits for the course, students enrolled in MA Anglophone Modernities will have to complete a poster presentation due at the end of the course and a research paper of 5000 words that will be due tentatively on 31 March 2026. Students enrolled in the MA Germanistik need to complete a poster presentation due at the end of the course. As a unit test (Modulprüfung) students can choose between a term paper of 25 pages or a more practical project work for which a documentation (15 pages) needs to be handed in and a short oral presentation (15 minutes) is given. Both the term paper and project are due on 31 March 2026.
